Market Power

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS, April 24 (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators are investigating whether the combined power of Vivendi's Universal Music Group and British record label EMI's recorded music unit will disadvantage rivals and users, according to people familiar with the issue. Questionnaires sent by the European Commission to competitors and users of Universal and EMI also showed the EU watchdog focusing on the companies' market share in classics and ...

When the leader of the free world announces greenhouse gases are going out of style, it's a good day at Exelon Corp. As owner of the largest fleet of noncarbon-emitting nuclear plants in the country, Exelon ultimately expects to see a big boost to its bottom line from a new "carbon rule" expected to be announced Monday as its competitors face shutting down or paying to curb or offset pollution. But the Chicago-based nuclear giant isn't sitting idly by waiting for the money to...

Jeff Bezos tells of going through "A" words in the dictionary when he decided to call his nascent e-commerce site Amazon. As the name of the world's largest river, he felt it conveyed a sense of size. Coincidentally, the word Amazon also appears in some Greek mythology. Those Amazons were said to be one-breasted female warriors, chests partially cauterized in youth so that they might better steady their bows and arrows in combat. That, too, is a powerful...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments from Illinois Tool Works Inc., which is trying to block a lawsuit over devices it sells for use in industrial printers. Glenview-based ITW contends a federal appeals court made it too easy to sue patent owners for "tying," or conditioning the sale of a popular product on the purchase of a second item. The company has the support of several business trade groups, Verizon Communications Inc., Pfizer Inc. and the Bush administration. The lower...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawsuit brought by the U.S. Justice Department and several states against American Express Co over the credit card rules the company imposed on merchants can move forward to trial, a U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday. The lawsuit, filed in 2010, charged that American Express' rules prevent merchants from offering discounts and incentives to consumers to use less expensive forms of payment. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis of Brooklyn said that...

With partial control of a key pipeline, El Paso Corp. likely wielded sufficient market power to inflate the cost of natural gas going into Southern California last year, according to staff findings of a federal energy agency. The conclusions by a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff economist came amid administrative hearings into allegations that market manipulation by El Paso Corp. led to soaring natural gas prices in California last year. California regulators...

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), so far the most visible Capitol Hill lawmaker to oppose Comcast's merger with Time Warner Cable , is pointing to Netflix 's experience as an example of why the transaction should be blocked. Netflix earlier this week announced its opposition to the merger , citing the greater leverage that it will give Comcast , particularly over providing content companies with access to its broadband customers. On Thursday,...

The American Airlines/US Airways merger talks are on hold due to the ongoing antitrust trial led by the Department of Justice. The D.O.J. is concerned, from the perspective of protecting consumers' interests, that the resulting airline would have too much market power in many of its locations. Though this is true (assuming nothing about the airlines' business was changed and no assets were divested), the underlying issues are broader than that. This is an inevitable story of consolidation...

By Samina Karim Oct 9 (Reuters) - The American Airlines/US Airways merger talks are on hold due to the ongoing antitrust trial led by the Department of Justice. The D.O.J. is concerned, from the perspective of protecting consumers' interests, that the resulting airline would have too much market power in many of its locations. Though this is true (assuming nothing about the airlines' business was changed and no assets were divested), the underlying issues are broader...

NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC), which regulates interstate pipelines, said on Monday it was denying the application by Enbridge and Enterprise to be able to set market-based rates on its reversed Seaway pipeline, according to an order released by the commission. The Seaway, which will initially carry 150,000 barrels per day of both sweet and sour crude from Cushing, Oklahoma to the refineries along the Gulf Coast,...

The European Union is looking into potential antitrust violations involving the distribution of Apple Inc's iPhones and iPads, after receiving what sources said were informal complaints from telecoms operators. The complaints involve handset subsidies and marketing that the world's most valuable technology corporation sign-off with operators that carry its smartphones and tablets, and also includes subsidies that carriers pay to Apple, one of the three sources told Reuters on...

By Richard D. Cudahy. and Richard D. Cudahy is a United States Court of Appeals judge and practiced regulatory law for 25 years | May 1, 1997

Why the urge to merge? In one deregulated industry after another, the force of consolidation has been unmistakable. Electric companies are mating with electric companies and natural gas merchants with their own. Now electric outfits are even merging with gas. This frenzy has raised concerns that the competitive benefits of deregulation will be short-lived if the players can regain--by merger --their power to control prices and output. Economists call this "market power." According to orthodox theory,...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican government's planned overhaul of its phone and television markets opens up the field to all players, one of the architects of revamp said on Wednesday, which could offer telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim a way into the local TV business. The telecoms reform bill, presented by President Enrique Pena Nieto on Monday, could end broadcaster Televisa's rule of the airwaves and Slim's stranglehold on the phone business. The government is...

* Q1 profit drops, but tops Wall St forecast * Weather, Edwardsport charge hits bottom line * Still sees July 1 close to Progress deal May 4 (Reuters) - Duke Energy Corp said it expects federal regulators to back its plan to buy peer Progress Energy and allow the companies to close the proposed $13.7 billion deal by July 1. Duke, which reported quarterly earnings that slightly topped Wall Street forecasts on Friday, first announced its plan to buy...

WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Recent stock price and exchange rate movements show that monetary policy can have a real effect on the economy, an economic adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday during a speech in Washington. "The argument that monetary policy doesn't work was disproved by the present surge of stock price, as well as the weakening of the yen," Koichi Hamada, Abe's special economic adviser, said during a speech in Washington...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawsuit brought by the U.S. Justice Department and several states against American Express Co over the credit card rules the company imposed on merchants can move forward to trial, a U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday. The lawsuit, filed in 2010, charged that American Express' rules prevent merchants from offering discounts and incentives to consumers to use less expensive forms of payment. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis of Brooklyn said that...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators may open an investigation into a patent dispute between Apple Inc , Microsoft Corp and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc to ensure patent holders do not thwart rivals, the EU's antitrust chief said on Friday. Last month Microsoft took its case to the European Commission, saying Motorola Mobility was charging too much for use of its patents in Microsoft products. Motorola Mobility said Apple had also...